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Framing Games as ToolsSampo Karjalainen, Co-founder at Sulake / Habbo@sampok
Hello everyone. First a little bit about myself. I started Habbo Hotel together with Aapo Kyrölä back in year 2000. Nowadays I'm not anymore involved in daily operations of Habbo, but I'm a board member.
Lately I've been working on some new ideas, most recently on game-like mobile app that aims to make everyday exercise more fun.
Framing Games as ToolsSampo Karjalainen, Co-founder at Sulake / Habbo@sampokBut here and now I'd like to use my 10 minute snapshot talk to talk about one way of looking at games. I'd like to frame games as tools that people can use to ease their lives and solve their problems. I won't be talking only about therapy games – I'll look at some of the most popular games and see what type of role they have in people's lives. It can be a bit hard to think about games this way, maybe vague, but I think it can be useful as one lens for looking at games.
The view comes from my background and interest in design, especially interaction design, and it's also greatly in"uenced by Jane McGonigal's great, optimistic book The Reality is Broken.
So the claim is: Games solve, or at least ease problems in people's lives. The more they ease, the more valuable they are.
Let's start with the easy stuff. Games are entertainment. Games are fun. So plenty of games solve the problem of being bored. For example mobile games are good at this.
EngagingWaiting for the plane, you $re up Angry Birds to be less bored. And Angry Birds delivers. It engages you fully with it's tight feedback loops, tangible, juicy interaction and feedback. Every time you release the bird with the slingshot, your mind is fully engaged, waiting to see what happens and as you see your results you are eager to go and tune your tactic. This state of focus is the total opposite of bored.Completing levels and progressing in the game feels good. This sense of progression, of getting things done is another frequently seen satisfying element in many casual and social games.
Satisfying workIf we look at CityVille, you need to work hard to build your city. Plenty of clicking that sums up to hours, days and weeks. It's this satisfying work that makes them so appealing to many people. In real life, work can be quite unsatisfying: the goals are unclear, the tasks unde$ned, feedback is bad, you don't see how you're progressing. All that is different in CityVille: It's very clear what you need to do and you get clear feedback on how you're doing. If only real work were this satisfying. And satisfying work is fun. Maybe this is one reason why social games appeal to middle-aged people. Real-life work is not satisfying, but online it's a different case.
Satisfying workIt's not only casual games, though. World of Warcraft has had this element of satisfying work for a long time. The grinding, doing quests have the exact same elements: It's clear what you are supposed to do, you go and do it, get instant feedback and sense of job well done. A clear sense of progress.
Social connectionAnother thing that World of Warcraft has is the social aspect. Players play in shared social context, most of the time individually, but they also form guilds and play together. This social connection can be an important reason to come back. There's a saying for this: "They come for the game, stay for the people." Doing things together, sharing stories, getting new friends can be very valuable to people with a “de$cit of social connections”. And even for people with active real-life social life the experience of connecting to others is meaningful and valuable.
SuccessWorld of Warcraft provides also experiences of success. Epic win. As players win alone or together, the feeling of success lights up players lives. Even failure in games can be fun. But players anyways approach the game with an optimism of being able to be successful. Sometimes they win, sometimes they fail, but the primary mindset is optimism. "I can do it."
Social connectionLet's jump to Habbo Hotel. Habbo is for teenagers. It's a social experience and not really a game, more like a playground. It’s also a place where you can make new friends – and that can be a big thing if you are a lonely teen.
IdentityHabbo also provides other value: Teens are becoming adult and they often don't know yet who they are. They are developing their image of self and Habbo provides a safe place to experiment with their identity.
IndependenceIt also lets them practice their independence, decide of their own environment and friends – something that they may not be able to do in their real lives yet.
RespectAnd one more thing that we've learned, is that they all crave to be respected and accepted as a member of a group.When Habbo manages to deliver these experiences we get some really loyal users who are willing to pay for it and stay with us for years.
These were some examples. There are other types of value that games can deliver, too. Maybe even undiscovered ones. The best ways to understand it is to be very close to the players. Use empathy, do qualitative research, dig deeper, understand people better than they understand themselves. Or as a visionary entrepreneur, analyze your own feelings very closely when you play games.
It's clear that game themes, visuals, mechanics and stories play some roles, but I think it's these psychological reasons why some games become more sticky than others.
The value hypothesis tests whether a product or service really delivers value to customers once they are using it. ”
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Framing games as tools can make games more compatible with some popular startup methodologies. Eric Ries' Lean Startup is about learning quickly: validating your hypotheses and assumptions as quickly as possible. Typically one of the biggest leap-of-faith hypotheses is the value assumption: what value does your product bring to your customers? The whole product is built on this assumption. If you're building a game and don't really know what value it brings to people's lives, you're building on a shaky ground.
The goal of Customer Discovery is [...]: !nding out who the customers for your product are and whether the problem you believe you are solving is important to them. ”
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Lean Startup derives heavily form Steve Blank's Customer Development. However it's been a bit hard to apply it to games and other entertainment. But if you look your game as a solution to a person's problem, it's much easier to apply the Customer-Problem-Solution framework in Customer Discovery.
customers "hire" products to do speci!c "jobs"
[...]
can help managers segment their markets to mirror the way their customers experience life. ”
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And one useful way of thinking about disruptive innovation and market segmentation is in Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma and Solution. When building disruptive innovations, you shouldn't think about existing product categories or customer segments. You should understand what type of "job-to-be-done" people have and then relentlessly focus on delivering a solution to that.
In this context, it can be seen that we as game designers and developers are helping to $x people's problems. We are helping people be less bored, stressed, hopeless, lonely, depressed or something else. Games are the tools that can help ease these problems. Of course, having this intention is not enough. To deliver a solution, you need good practical ideas, great game mechanics with tight feedback loops and really sharp execution.
But anyways, I think the value of this way of looking at games, is three-fold:
Social games
HTML5
Streaming
Casual games
Hard-core games
2D vs. 3D
Gami!cationMobile games
MMOG
Console gamesHandheld games
Downloadable games
Action
1. Market segmentation by needs
Downloadable games
game
Casual games
It helps you understand the market in other terms than industry categories, genres, platforms, technology or even demographics. It helps you see it in terms of what people need and what parts of peoples lives can be improved, eased. You'll be building your business on a solid needs that last.
2. New types of gamesIt can be a good way to search and $nd new areas where games can expand. New forms of games are being developed that expand the game industry. Gami$cation or gameful design movements turn all kinds of activities into game-like experiences. What type of problems could be solved with games? This way of thinking can be used in brainstorming or strategy work to $nd new blue oceans.
3. MeaningIt can help you see the bigger meaning of your company. How are your games changing this world? How do you want to change the world? Your game will have an effect on this world, whether you want it or not. You can think about it, and actively mold it if you want to. And build long-term meaning for your company.
1. Market segmentation by needs2. New types of games3. Meaning
So that's it, go and build games that matter to people. Thanks.
Image creditsSlide 1, 4, 26: Tools image scjodyhttp://www."ickr.com/photos/scjody/6050954983/in/photostream/
Slide 7: Sonyhttp://uk.playstation.com/home/events/detail/item126310/Your-whole-world-in-your-hands/
Slide 24: Earth, NASA, public domain
